If it seems Senate hopeful Janet Mills is stepping up her social-media campaign, there may be a reason.
The Hermon GOP Committee says the term-limited governor’s own polling is showing a serious problem for her.
Mills “got some very bad news about her run for the United States Senate,” the committee is reporting on its website.
“Polling from her own camp has her losing in the primary to an oyster fisherman nobody has ever heard of,” the committee said.
“But it gets worse – if she does pull off that primary win, she’s trailing incumbent Senator Susan Collins by more than 30 points,” the group added.
The committee postings seem to be a hybrid of partisanship and news gathering. It even said it asked Mills to comment on its report, which means the committee is, heck, behaving like a news outlet.
“The 77-year-old outgoing governor refused our request for comment,” the committee said.
A post Mills put on her Facebook campaign page Tuesday – thanking the Portland Press Herald for a favorable op-ed – may be evidence of her jitteriness.
In a similar vein, Politico is quoting an Emily’s List poll purporting to show that Graham Platner (the oyster fisherman referenced by the Hermon GOP) can’t beat the five-term Republican Collins.
Platner’s “social media history is a major general election liability, a new Democratic polling memo warns,” reports Politico.
The survey, conducted on behalf of the Democrat group Emily’s List, finds that most voters wouldn’t support Platner over Collins after learning of his past social media posts in which he called himself a communist, denigrated the police and characterized white people in rural Maine as “stupid” and “racist,” Politico said.
The poll quoted by Politico did not measure how Mills would fare against Collins.
“The Maine Senate race is a top target for Democrats next year, and the poll confirms Collins’ vulnerability as a GOP incumbent in a blue state: On a generic ballot, Maine voters say they prefer a Democrat over a Republican in the Senate next year, 46 percent to 37 percent,” Politico said.
Collins’ approval rating is also under water by 10 points, according to the news outlet.
